you might be surprised (i get a little dangerous)
by shineyma
Summary: Snapshots from the life of Felicity and Oliver Queen. It's not as simple as you might think. (Bratva AU)
1. Dinner Conversation (One Week)

A/N: So I got a prompt for Oliver/Felicity and wrote a drabble. Then I got another prompt-this one for Bratva Fake!Marriage-and wrote another drabble. And that one EXPLODED. To date, it has received four times as many notes as my most popular AOS drabble, and the note count is still climbing.

I got another Bratva prompt, then another, and another. At this point, I have to accept that this is a series.

Because there are a lot of time jumps involved, each chapter title will indicate how long Oliver and Felicity have been married.

Anyway, title is from "Live a Little" by Florrie. Thanks for reading and please be gentle if you review!

* * *

Felicity learns quickly that her new husband, for all of his apparent disinterest in her, is very aware of her movements. She's pretty sure Sara—the bodyguard he assigned her—is reporting everything she does while she does it.

Whatever. Everything Felicity has to hide happens in cyberspace, and Sara's pretty obviously not following her _there_.

Anyway, the point is, Oliver is _super_ obvious about knowing what she's been up to. The day she goes on a shopping spree (Starling City is a _lot_ colder than Vegas), he asks over dinner whether she found everything she needed, or if she'd like the number for his sister's private designer. The next day, he asks whether she enjoyed her lunch with Thea, and the day after that, he recommends a better bookstore than the one she visited that morning.

He's already made it perfectly clear that he doesn't actually care what she does, so she's pretty sure he's trying to provoke her. She doesn't care about being followed and spied on—even aside from the fact that she knows no one he has is good enough to track her hacking, she's used to it; her father's people have been basically stalking her since she could walk—but she _does_ care that he's trying to play some kind of mind game with her.

She thinks he might have the wrong idea about her; just because she agreed to marry him on her father's say-so doesn't mean she's a push-over. She might not have his resources and manpower (although technically she _is_ entitled to half of them, what with them being married and all), but she's got power of her own.

The sooner he learns that, the better.

So she smiles and thanks him sweetly for the recommendation, and the next day—while Sara is busy glaring away a man who wandered too close—she hacks his phone's GPS from her tablet and makes careful note of his location.

That night, wearing the same annoyingly pleasant expression as always, he asks whether she enjoyed the park.

"It was a little crowded for my taste, but yeah," she nods. "I liked the ducks." She takes a sip of her wine, sets it down, and then gives him her best guileless smile. "Did you enjoy the Glades?"

The other six people at the table—a different group of his people dine with them every night, and she's mostly given up on keeping track—freeze. Oliver slowly lowers his fork to his plate.

"One of your father's old factories, wasn't it?" she continues, and lets her smile shift into something sharper. "That sure seems like a weird place to spend such a pretty day, but what do I know?"

Oliver's eyes narrow, and for the first time since he shook her father's hand and said _You have a deal_, she feels like he's really seeing her.

For a long moment, no one speaks. Their six nameless dining companions look like they're bracing themselves for bloodshed, but Felicity keeps her spine straight and her eyes locked on Oliver's. She's been married to him for a week, and he's spent the whole time alternating between ignoring her and playing some weird mind game.

It's about time he realizes that she is _not_ her father's daughter. She's her mother's.

Slowly, one corner of his mouth ticks up in some approximation of a smile.

"Not as much as you think you do," he finally says, but it sounds more teasing than insulting.

"And not as little as _you_ think," she counters.

His almost-smile widens into a grin. The man to his left actually whimpers.

"I guess not," Oliver allows. He lifts his glass to her in a silent toast, drinks, and then sets it down and resumes eating like nothing's happened.

Smugly, Felicity follows suit. The rest of dinner passes in silence.


	2. Bargaining (Eighteen Months)

A/N: anonymous asked: "Eighteen months after your Bratva AU? Please?"

* * *

Felicity always loves being summoned to Oliver's office. It's a deliberate show of power, a move calculated to remind her of just how many cards he holds. His office is a symbol of his wealth and connections—the numerous advantages he has, even beyond his status within the Bratva.

It's a pointed act, meant to show just how much control over her he has.

And he only bothers with _that _when she's about to get something she wants.

On this particular day, she's delighted, upon arriving, to be asked to wait. Ordering her to come all this way and then leaving her to cool her heels for a while—he must really be desperate, to make such transparent moves.

"Mr. Queen will see you now," Oliver's assistant—a neat, efficient young man who always appears to be just short of terrified of Felicity—says after nearly fifteen minutes. "He asks that Miss Lance wait outside."

"Does he?" she asks, interested. He's never kept Sara out of one of their meetings before. She darts a glance at her. "That okay with you, Sara?"

"He's the boss," Sara says, but she doesn't sound happy about it. She hates Oliver's office; calls it a death trap, with all the windows and the clear sight lines.

"Yes," Felicity agrees, smiling to herself as she opens the door to Oliver's office. "He is."

And boy, is he making an effort to show her that, today. As she walks in, she finds him sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his chair and completely at ease. He doesn't rise to greet her or make any move to apologize for her wait, just motions to one of the visitors' chairs.

"Hello, Oliver," she says. She studies his face as she sits and decides to get straight to the point. He's clearly in the kind of mood where he'll draw out pleasantries until she's annoyed enough to just _ask_, and she might as well skip that particular frustration. "What can I do for you today?"

"Straight to the point?" he asks.

She'll let him have this victory, too; it will put him in a better mood. "Let's pretend we had our small talk during the _fifteen minutes_ I spent waiting."

He smiles, just a little, and gets to the point.

"We've had some interference lately," he says, sitting forward. "Shipments going missing, ambushes during patrols, meetings being interrupted…"

"Things that only a member of the family would have the knowledge to arrange," she surmises, and he nods sharply.

"Yes," he says, and hands her a folder. "But the interference is coming from outside of the family. _Far_ outside the family."

"The Triad?" she asks, flipping through the folder. It's full of lists—dates, locations, and involved parties—and there are no immediately obvious patterns to any of it.

Of course, if there were, he wouldn't be bringing this to her.

Oliver's mouth turns down slightly. "I thought I told you to stop monitoring our communications."

"If you don't want me to listen," she says, lightly, "You shouldn't make it so easy."

"All of our technology carries the best encryption money can buy," he counters, leaning back in his chair again.

"From Craigslist, maybe," she says, rolling her eyes. The security on his people's phones is so basic that it actually, physically pains her to apply the word _encryption_ to it. It took her less than an hour to crack, and that was during their first week of marriage.

She's not even going to _mention_ how ridiculous it is that he's so annoyed by her monitoring his organization's communication when he's doing the same thing to her. She's saving her knowledge of _that_ to throw in his face when he least expects it.

"And you didn't answer my question," she adds, closing the folder.

"Yes," he says, the slight amusement fading from his expression. "It's the Triad. Of that, we're certain. What we don't know is _how_."

"You want me to find out," she says, careful not to make it a question.

"Everyone involved has been thoroughly questioned," he says, in a dark tone that totally explains why no one at the manor has made eye contact with him in weeks. "And cleared. We're…" His jaw ticks. "At a loss. Any help you could provide would be…appreciated."

And now they've reached her favorite part of the meeting. She tries not to smile too smugly.

"_How_ appreciated?"

Oliver doesn't sigh, but he kind of looks like he wants to. The bargaining stage is definitely his _least_ favorite part of these meetings. She's not sympathetic at all; he only has himself to blame. It was _his_ insistence on an exchange of favors the first time he needed her help that led to this tradition. _She_ would have been happy to help for nothing, but he didn't want to feel indebted to her.

And now here they are.

"The house in Martha's Vineyard," he offers expressionlessly. It's always his opening move, and one of these days she's going to accept it, just to see the look on his face.

But she's not after property this time—or vacations. She's been lulling him into a false sense of security with her typical trophy-wife bargains—this house or that charity event or whatever—and now it's time for her _real_ play.

"Applied Sciences," she counters, and watches him still.

"Excuse me?"

"Applied Sciences," she repeats. She sets the folder on the edge of his desk and folds her hands in her lap. "It's being wasted, and I want it."

"You want a position in my company," he says flatly.

"_Our_ company," she corrects, just to watch him grimace. "And I don't want a _position_. I want to run it."

He gives her a long, evaluating look, and she maintains her pleasant smile. She has a _lot_ of plans for Applied Sciences.

He might even like some of them.

"That's a lot to ask," he says finally.

"This is a lot of leaks," she says, tapping one finger on the folder for emphasis.

Oliver is silent for nearly two full minutes, and it's not easy to keep her smile from becoming triumphant. The longer it takes him to say no, the less likely it is he will. These leaks must be worse than he's saying; he's obviously trapped.

"You have two days," he says abruptly, standing. She takes her time following suit. "If you can trace the leaks before the gala on Saturday, Applied Sciences is yours."

"Excellent," she says. She takes the folder from his desk and tucks it into her purse, then gives him a brilliant smile. "Always a pleasure doing business with you, Oliver."

"I'm sure," he says dryly, but she knows he likes it, too—even if he'll never admit it.

He walks her to the door of his office, and, despite how far she's already pushed him today, she can't resist giving him a kiss on the cheek as he opens the door for her. He stills and slants her an unreadable look—the same one he gives her every time she initiates physical contact.

One of these days he's gonna act on that look, and it's either going to be spectacular or a complete catastrophe.

She honestly can't wait.

"Thanks for the chat," she says. "See you at home."

"See you at home," he echoes, and his tone is just as unreadable as his face.

His eyes follow her all the way to the elevator.


	3. Temptation (Eighteen Months)

A/N: anonymous requested a follow up to the Eighteen Months drabble; andyouweremine requested Oliver's POV

* * *

Because Oliver's wife delights in surpassing expectations, it only takes her one day to find the source of the leak that's troubled him for months.

She finds him in his home office after dinner, entering barely a second after knocking (without waiting to be invited; no one else would dare) and dropping a folder onto his desk with a pleasant smile.

"Your leak," she announces, and settles into one of the visitor's chairs. The chairs are deliberately uncomfortable, meant to discourage people from lingering, but by the way she lounges in it, it might as well be a throne. "As promised."

He sits back in his own chair, studying her expression. He wonders whether the smugness he sees is down to how quickly she traced the leak, or if it's more to do with the fact that, now that she's delivered, he'll be forced to uphold _his_ end of the bargain.

As soon as the paperwork is taken care of, Felicity will be running the Applied Sciences division of QC. He has no idea what she wants with it, which does make him uneasy, but Oliver is a man of his word. She's found his leak, and so she gets Applied Sciences, as agreed.

He amuses himself with the thought that he's made a deal with the devil; of all the people he's dealt with in the past week alone, Felicity is by far the least dangerous.

_Least dangerous_, not harmless. His wife is many things; _harmless_ is not one of them.

But those are thoughts for another time.

"I was expecting a name," he says, leaning forward to pick up the folder. He allows a hint of friendly mocking to color his words, just because he likes the look the tone always puts in her eyes. (An indulgence, but a simple one.) "Not a report."

"I like to be thorough," Felicity says pertly. Then she sobers, something like unease crossing her face. "And…Sara thought you might want proof."

That's not a good sign. Teasing forgotten, he opens the folder at once. It contains at least twenty pages, all undoubtedly full of carefully collected evidence—because Felicity is nothing if not thorough—but he doesn't make it past the name at the top of the first page.

Slade.

Betrayal hits him right in the throat, and for a moment he has to struggle to maintain his composure. Slade has been like a brother to him for more than a decade, and though there's been distance between them for the past few years, Oliver would never have expected _this_ of him.

After a moment, betrayal is outweighed by fury, and he closes the folder and sets it aside. He'll look through the evidence later; for now, this is a problem that needs to be dealt with. _No one_ crosses Oliver—crosses the Bratva—without retribution. No one.

Felicity is silent as he picks up his phone and orders that Slade be taken into custody. He can spend the night stewing in a cell while Oliver decides exactly what to do with him. One of his closest advisors turning against him in such a way will suggest weakness to others, both within and without the Bratva, and an example must be made of him to discourage potential copycats.

"Not good news?" Felicity asks, once he's hung up the phone (with, admittedly, more force than necessary).

"No," he says coolly. "It's not."

He itches with the urge to _move_—to confront Slade immediately, to put a bullet through his other eye, to put to use some of the lessons Anatoli gave him so long ago—but he forces himself to remain still. His fury will only make him reckless; he needs time to calm down before he takes action.

Slade taught him that.

He wants to shoot someone.

"Sooo," Felicity draws out, and his eyes snap to hers. "This probably isn't the best time, but I'd like to remind you that we had a deal."

"A deal," he echoes, disbelieving.

"Yeah," she says, and crosses her legs. "You don't get out of giving me Applied Sciences just because you don't like the answers I got for you. No take backs."

The childish words surprise a laugh out of him, and for a moment his fury is drowned out by a strange kind of affection. Any one of his men, faced with him in this mood, would be too terrified to so much as make eye contact with him. And here's Felicity, not only making eye contact but actually playfully _scolding_ him.

She's not frightened. She looks slightly cautious—reasonably so—but she's still treating him as she always does: as an equal, not someone to fear.

Sometimes he is so _very_ tempted by her.

Acting on it would be beyond idiotic, of course. He already loses roughly half of the encounters he has with Felicity, and sex has always made him stupid. He's a long way from eighteen, from the foolish boy he used to be—reckless and arrogant, believing his father's name and connections could get him out of any trouble he wandered into—and he knows better, now. The last thing he should do is cross this line, throw the complications sex brings into his already complex relationship with his wife.

But he's never been good at backing down from a dare, and the flirty looks she sends him always have a challenge in them—a challenge he's finding it harder and harder to ignore.

Felicity is beautiful and cunning and has been beating him at his own game on a semi-regular basis since the very first week of their marriage. It would take a stronger man than Oliver to remain unmoved in the face of such a remarkable woman.

And now this—this lack of fear in the face of his temper.

He needs to get her out of his office before he does something stupid.

"No take backs," he agrees, and he thinks he manages to keep most of his amusement out of his voice. "Applied Sciences is yours, as agreed."

"Good," she says, with a brilliant smile. "When can I expect to take over?"

"The arrangements will take a few days," he says, and makes a mental note to find a new position for the _current_ head of Applied Sciences. The man is an old friend of Oliver's father; he won't take kindly to being replaced. But a deal is a deal. "Is Wednesday acceptable?"

Her smile takes on a distinct edge, and he itches now with an entirely _different_ urge. "I think you can do better than that, but considering the circumstances—" she flicks a glance at the folder on his desk. "—I'll allow it."

"And what will that cost me?" he asks, more amused than resigned.

"The house in Martha's Vineyard," she teases, and he has to laugh again. He's been trying to offload that property (one of his least favorites) on her for more than a year. "Hmm, I think I'll take an IOU, this time." She looks at him under her lashes, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his face blank against the suggestion in her tone when she adds, "You can owe me one."

He's always done his best to avoid being indebted to Felicity—it can't possibly end well—but this time he decides to allow it. In part because he _really_ needs to get her out of his office; his control is starting to fray dangerously.

"I'll owe you, then," he says, and raises a prompting eyebrow at her. "Now, if there's nothing else…?"

"No, I think that's it," she says brightly. She stands and smooths her skirt down, drawing his attention to her legs in a way that _must_ be deliberate. "Goodnight, Oliver."

"Goodnight, Felicity."

As she leaves, he leans back in his seat, struggling with temptation. He's so consumed with it—with thoughts of the challenges she's constantly offering him and just how badly taking her up on them could end—that it takes him nearly a full minute to remember his rage over Slade's betrayal.

His wife, he realizes, distracted him right out of his temper.

Isn't that interesting.


	4. Surrender (Twenty Months)

A/N: absentlyabbie asked: "Bratva AU - Surrender"

* * *

Later, Oliver will chalk it up to bad timing. There's no possible way Felicity could know just how trying his day has been. She's perceptive, but he's an expert at keeping his emotions hidden; she can't be expected to realize just how close to the edge he is.

If she _had_ realized, she definitely wouldn't have put her hand on his arm and given him that impudent smile. And if he _weren't_ so close to the edge, he would've been able to ignore it.

But she does and he is, and over the edge he goes.

He moves faster than he means to—faster than she could be expected to track—and at first, her only reaction to the kiss is a muffled squeak against his mouth. Then she shifts and melts into it, winding her arms around his neck and tilting her head, changing the angle of the kiss (and, incidentally, ending the way her glasses have been pressing uncomfortably against his cheek) as he backs her against the wall.

There's heat. There's passion.

But there's no surrender in it.

Of course there's not. Of course Felicity, who has challenged him every step of the way, doesn't fold in the face of his intensity. She matches him evenly—rakes her nails along his scalp as he fists his hand in her hair, nips at his bottom lip as he slides his other hand up under her shirt—and by the time the kiss ends, he's just as breathless as she is.

"This is a terrible idea," she pants.

It is. It _absolutely_ is.

She's beaten him at his own game more times than he can count. There is literally _no way_ this ends well.

But she's flushed and beautiful and every inch of her is still pressed against him, and in the end, he's only human.

"I don't care," he says.

She grins, incandescent. "I was hoping you'd say that."

This time, _she_ kisses _him_.


	5. Smile (Two Months)

A/N: lindewen asked: ""Have I entered an alternate universe or did you just crack a smile for me?" with Oliver x Felicity for your Bratva AU, if possible, please?!"

* * *

Being a trophy wife is boring, which is why Felicity doesn't think she can be blamed for making her own fun.

Once the dubious thrill of familiarizing herself with Starling City wears off (which takes about three days), she starts to look elsewhere for entertainment. And what could be more entertaining than assuring her advantage over Oliver?

So she starts monitoring his people's communication. That takes all of two hours to arrange—the security on their phones is so basic that it actually, physically pains her to apply the word _encryption_ to it—but comes with a new obstacle in that approximately sixty-five percent of their conversations—both verbal and text-based—are held in Russian.

Felicity therefore manages to stretch the entertainment out for nearly three whole days, as she writes, tests, implements, and perfects a Russian-to-English translation program. Her own complete lack of familiarity with the language makes it take longer than it otherwise would, but that's okay. She likes a challenge.

She wouldn't be here if she didn't.

Once her efforts to monitor, translate, and compile said communication are complete, she's once again forced to find a new way to entertain herself. It's not that she's short on distractions—in a delightful turn of irony, being the wife of Queen Consolidated's CEO comes with a surprising number of charity obligations—it's that her distractions, for the most part, aren't all that interesting.

Which is why she's so happy to find a very quick and convenient source of amusement in the form of Oliver's men.

It's been more than ten years since she broke her childhood habit of babbling, and somewhere in there, she somehow forgot how much _fun_ it could be—not the embarrassing things she let slip, that is, but how hilarious people's faces would be in the wake of her accidental bluntness.

She's still not babbling, but it turns out that saying anything other than _yes, sir_ to Oliver provokes the same reaction in his people that her babbling did in her father's. It's kind of hysterical.

So of course she starts doing it as often as possible.

Well, not as often as _possible_ so much as often as is wise. She may have more of an advantage than Oliver thinks she does, especially in the realm of information gathering, but he _does_ have power of his own. Mostly in the form of guns and manpower, two things she is sadly lacking in.

Provoking Oliver is fun, and it's an excellent start to several of her long-term goals, but there's a delicate balance she needs to maintain. At the moment, she thinks her insolence (one of his men actually called it that in a text message once, which is just hilarious) mostly amuses him, which is good—it means he's still underestimating her—but she needs to be careful not to push him into annoyance.

So she doesn't snark him _all_ the time (or even most of it), just when she thinks she can get away with it. The rest of the time, she's perfectly pleasant to him—which is, in its own way, just as amusing, if only for the way his men watch her with such suspicion whenever she's polite. It's almost like they think she's up to something.

She'd be offended if they weren't one hundred percent right.

She's actually up to a lot of things.

Unfortunately, not many of them will be accomplished anytime soon. That's the problem with long-term plans; they take time. Which is why, in the meantime, she's left to making her own fun with Oliver's men. (Not the women; he has several female employees, but they're not nearly as faint-hearted as the men. Felicity definitely approves of his hiring practices.)

To her shame (and concern; she can't allow herself to fall into the habit of underestimating _him_), it takes her a while to realize that he's perfectly aware of what she's doing.

It happens when one night, after dinner, Oliver invites her to join him in his study. It's unexpected—he _always_ disappears to do Bratva business immediately after dinner, and the sudden change of routine after two months of marriage makes her nervous, especially as it comes totally out of left field.

She hides her unease behind a smile.

"Of course," she says, pushing back from the table. "I'd love to."

It takes some effort to keep the smile from sliding into a smirk when her pleasant agreement causes one of their dining companions to twitch and another to give her a suspicious glare. It's just as hysterical as ever.

If Oliver notices the reaction she gets, he doesn't mention it. In fact, he doesn't say anything at all until they reach the study.

"Have a seat," he offers, blandly, as he closes the door behind them. "Something to drink?"

"No, thank you," she says. She settles into one the chairs in front of the fireplace and watches as he pours himself a drink from the sidebar. This, too, is a little unsettling; other than the occasional glass of wine at dinner, she's never seen him touch alcohol. "What is this about?"

He takes a seat in the chair across from hers and sets his glass on the end table without actually drinking from it.

"You're scaring my men," he says bluntly.

She blinks at him innocently. "Am I?"

"Yes," he says. "Frequently."

"Well, I don't know how that could be," she muses, careful to keep her tone innocent. It's not easy.

"Yes, you do," he disagrees. His tone is so bland that this is suddenly a little less funny, because she can't read him at all. She doesn't know where this is going.

She doesn't like not knowing things.

"Do I?" she asks.

"You do," he says, settling back in his chair. "You're doing it on purpose."

"I'm purposely scaring your well-armed and incredibly dangerous men?" she asks skeptically.

"Yes," he says flatly. There's a slight pause (during which she eyes him warily), and then he grins.

The grin is nothing like the only other one she's ever gotten from him, that one night at dinner in their first week of marriage. That one was amused, but condescendingly so. This one is wide and almost (though not quite) boyish. It softens his face dramatically.

Her heart gives a sudden, inconvenient, and very troubling _thump_.

Play it off, Felicity. "Have I entered an alternate universe, or did you really just crack a smile for me?"

"I did," he says. The grin fades just as quickly as it appeared, but there's still a slight upturn to one corner of his mouth. "My men are terrified of you. It's pretty funny."

"I guess so," she says. "But I can't imagine why _I_ would scare them."

She doesn't try to make it sound like anything other than the lie it is, and his mouth ticks up further.

"No," he agrees dryly. "Me neither." He picks up his glass and turns it thoughtfully in his hands. "You have grown men who can—and have—taken bullets without flinching reaching for their weapons every time you open your mouth. It's…something."

She bites back a smile. "I mean, I wasn't gonna say anything. But I have noticed that your men are pretty jumpy for hardened criminals."

"Only around you," he says, and sets his glass down—again, without drinking from it—once more. There's a look in his eyes she can't place, and, combined with her still-elevated heartbeat (not good. _Really_ not good), it leaves her off-balance.

"Well," she says, a little more quietly than she means to. "If they're intimidated by blonde women in glasses, they might need to get out more."

"Maybe," he says, equally quiet. "Or maybe they're smarter than they look."

There's a sudden and very weird tension in the room. Felicity uncrosses and recrosses her legs, uncomfortable and hating it. Abruptly, this isn't funny at all.

"Is that all you wanted to say?" she asks, as politely as she can manage. "That I'm scaring your men?"

"That's all."

"Then, if there's nothing else, I need to make a few calls before bed," she says. It's not a lie—she's in the middle of coordinating a charity drive with a local law firm and it takes a lot of work—but it feels like one.

She _really_ doesn't like this.

"Of course," he says lightly. "Thank you for your time."

"Of course," she echoes, and stands. "Goodnight, Oliver."

"Goodnight, Felicity."

The tension is broken, but her discomfort follows her all the way to her own study. For the first time, it occurs to her that Oliver might not be the only one in trouble, here.

And she has no idea what to do about it.


	6. Bed (Twenty Months)

A/N: absentlyabbie asked: "Bratva AU; bed"

* * *

Throwing caution to the wind doesn't mean throwing forward-thinking to the wind, so when she and Oliver finally cross the line they've been dancing along for so long, Felicity makes sure to steer them to her room instead of his.

It doesn't matter in the moment—since, honestly, in the moment any flat surface will do—but it pays off in the aftermath.

Because they're in _her_ bed, in _her_ room, leaving the next move squarely in his court. Once the sex is over (which takes…a while; Oliver is both very generous and possessed of truly impressive stamina), whether he leaves at once or sticks around to cuddle is his decision, not hers.

If they'd gone to his room, it would've been _Felicity_ who had to puzzle out his state of mind and whether he wanted her to stay or go—and whether _she_ wanted to stay or go, for that matter. The decision he makes will inevitably have consequences, and for once, she's glad to pass that buck.

This isn't something she planned. She doesn't have contingencies or cost-benefit analyses or even a witty parting line ready. She's totally unprepared, and it's not a feeling she's used to. Hence falling back on the first rule of life according to her father: when in doubt, make it someone else's problem.

So it's Oliver's problem, not hers.

But, of course, he can't let it be that simple.

She's curled up against his side with his arm wrapped around her, and when he finally speaks—once they've both had time to catch their breath—she can feel his voice rumble in his chest. It's kind of a distracting sensation.

"Do you want me to leave?"

Oh, no. No way is she letting him turn this around on her. She shifts to look up at him, only to find him watching her already. His face is set in serious lines, and she knows that if she tells him to go he'll be gone before she even finishes her sentence. (For a man whose public identity is CEO and secret identity is mafia leader, he's bizarrely good about respecting her boundaries. Minus the whole spying and having her followed thing, obviously—but to be fair, she spies on him, too.)

But she made sure this happened in her room specifically to avoid having to answer this question.

So she asks, "Do _you_ want to go?"

"That doesn't answer my question, Felicity," he says evenly. "I want to know what you want me to do."

She studies his face, thoughtful. His expression is closed off, but everything about his body language—the arm he has wrapped around her, the absent circles he's tracing on her skin, the loose way he's reclining against her pillows—suggests to her that he's comfortable here. But just because he's not in a hurry to leave doesn't mean he wants to stay.

What _does_ she want him to do?

"I want you to do…whatever _you _want to do," she tells him, and he laughs quietly.

(He always laughs like it's been surprised out of him, and she tries not to think too hard about the warm feeling it gives her to cause it. That's not a path that leads anywhere good.)

"You can't make this easy for me, can you?"

"Now why would I ever do _that_?" she counters with a smile. "I swear, it's like you don't know me at all."

His return smile is small and quickly replaced by a very serious expression.

"Enough games, Felicity," he says (and the way he says her name is something else she tries not to think too hard about). "Tell me what you want."

His tone tells her that he's perfectly willing to go around in circles all night on this one; he's not gonna let her dodge the question. Which is telling in and of itself, she thinks—if he really wanted to go, he would've taken her evasion as tacit permission and left four sentences ago. But he's still here, wanting a real answer, and that implies that he wants to stay. Doesn't it?

She thinks it does. Which leaves the question of whether _she_ wants him to stay. She looks down, tracing a finger along the lines of his Bratva tattoo to avoid meeting his eyes as she considers the question.

For reasons she's chosen not to examine too closely, Felicity hasn't slept with anyone since before she married Oliver. She's had no reason not to—there's nothing in their business agreement or even their pre-nup that prohibits it, no fidelity clauses to hold either one of them back—but still. She hasn't.

She's missed it. Not just sex—although, yeah, that too—but actually, physically _sleeping_ with someone. She's missed the warmth of another body beside hers, the soothing sound of another's breathing. She's always slept better with someone else in bed with her, and while she's gotten used to going without…

Well, why deprive herself when she's got the option?

"I want you to stay," she says, keeping her eyes on his tattoo.

(She doesn't make a habit of lying to herself, but there's a difference between lying and not being totally honest, isn't there? She _has_ missed sleeping beside someone, and she'll leave it at that.)

"Then I'll stay," he says easily, like it's just that simple.

It's really not. Simple, that is. But she's already made one reckless decision tonight—what's one more?


	7. Consequences (Twenty Months)

A/N: lindewen asked: "'Consequences' for your Oliver x Felicity Bratva AU, please!"

* * *

Oliver has only been awake for ten minutes when his wife stirs.

Dawn is just beginning to creep through the picture window on the far wall, and Felicity is still curled against him, trusting and warm. She's been smiling slightly in her sleep, face not exactly _softened_ but at least missing the sharp edge of calculation he's used to seeing from her, and while her cunning is one of the things he most enjoys about Felicity, he's not really looking forward to seeing it return.

It would be easy to avoid; if he leaves now, before she's truly awake, he won't witness the change come over her face.

But he doesn't move.

There will be consequences for this, as there are for all things, and he'd just as soon face them now. Felicity isn't ready to admit this thing that's been building between them—her reluctance to ask him to stay last night made that clear enough—and he's sure that if he slips out without another word, she'll take it as an excuse to pretend this never happened.

He doesn't want that. He won't allow it.

So he stays right where he is as Felicity wakes.

For a second, she smiles at him, soft and happy, and the fact that _that_ is her first reaction to waking up next to him keeps him from being overly frustrated that the smile quickly slides into something much less sincere.

"You're still here," she says. Her voice is a little too rough, so soon after waking, for her to pull off the seductive tone she's trying for, but the failure is…endearing. "Hoping for another round?"

It's not why he's still here, but he wouldn't say no. "And if I am?"

"I think that could be arranged," she muses, and moves to straddle him.

Felicity isn't the type of woman to hide shyly beneath the blankets after sex. She's completely confident in her body; as he runs his eyes over her, appreciative, she smiles and leans back a little to give him a better view.

"Like what you see?" she asks, shaking her hair over her shoulder. It's a calculated move, and while it's attractive, it's not nearly as compelling as the genuine desperation of last night.

But he knows exactly how fast she would run if he shared that thought, so he gives her a smile and rubs his hands along her thighs.

"Even better in the daylight," he says.

"Good answer," she smiles, and leans down to kiss him.

It starts off easy, but he slides his hand into her hair to keep her close, and she smiles against his mouth and deepens it, humming low and satisfied in the back of her throat. She shifts on top of him, intent, as he smooths his other hand up her side, and it's just getting interesting when the low buzz of a vibrating phone shatters the early morning silence.

Felicity jerks away from him like she's been burned.

"Was that your phone or mine?" she asks, breathless.

"Mine's not silenced," he answers, and has to hold back a sigh as he watches her deliberately _not_ react.

He has feelings for Felicity. They're genuine and, while inconvenient, not something he can bring himself to put away. He's not in love—not really—but he _could_ be, and for all that he knows how badly it will likely end, he's not entirely inclined to stop himself from falling any further. He knows it would be a mistake, as surely as last night was a mistake, but he's of a mind to make it anyway. He's not exactly in the habit of denying himself what he wants.

None of that changes the fact that he could throw Felicity much, much farther than he trusts her.

"I should check that," she says, and rolls off of him. It would be easy to keep her in place, but he lets her go. "It might be important."

She leans over the edge of the bed, stretching to reach her dress where he discarded it on the floor last night, and he doesn't bother to resist the temptation to run his hand along the line of her spine. He smiles slightly to himself at the goosebumps that spring up in the wake of his touch; she might be able to hide her thoughts behind a quip and a smile, but she can't stop her physical reaction to him.

It's…satisfying.

"Stop that," she tosses over her shoulder, stretching a little farther. "I can hear you being smug from—ah-ha! Gotcha."

As he watches, she manages to fish her phone out of the pocket of her dress and sit back up without losing her balance once. Considering the fact that she was three-quarters of the way off the bed for a second there, he's impressed, and says so.

Felicity smiles at her phone. "I have excellent balance. And I'm very flexible, as well you know."

"I do know," he agrees. But, watching her face, he thinks the innuendo was an attempt at distraction, and he's curious. "So, is it important?"

"Is what important?" she asks innocently, but she's gone still, and her grip on her phone is white-knuckled.

That would be a yes, then.

"The message," he clarifies. "Is it important?"

She flicks a glance at him, then looks back down at her phone, face carefully blank. He can see her weighing her response, deciding which words will most efficiently defuse his curiosity, and it's…amusing. There aren't many people with the nerve to lie to him while fully dressed and well-armed; that Felicity is clearly preparing to do so while completely naked and sitting next to him in bed is just one more thing to like about her.

She's not afraid of him—or at least not overly so. She displays a sensible level of caution, but there's none of the terror he's become accustomed to in the last ten years.

It's refreshing.

"No," she says eventually. "It's just a reminder. Something I need to do."

"This early?" he asks, taking a pointed look at the clock. He's always up this early, but he knows that Felicity is given to sleeping in until seven or eight.

"Early?" she scoffs playfully. "The sun's up and everything, Oliver, what more do you want?"

"An answer," he says, deadpan, and she kisses him.

He's given her a new weapon to use against him. That's…something he may have cause to regret.

"I've already given you an answer," she teases, pulling away just as quickly as she leaned in. "It's a reminder that there's something I need to do."

More evasion. It's not a surprise—for all that Felicity talks a lot, she doesn't actually say much. Still, he's not inclined to ruin the peace he's feeling by pressing the issue; her lack of fear is refreshing, but if she pushes too far it also becomes irritating.

So he lets it go. "Do you need to leave?"

"I do," she says, with an apologetic grimace. "Sorry."

This, too, is new—someone running out on _him_. It doesn't upset him as he thought it might, though that may simply be because she won't be going far. She's his wife, after all; it's not like she can disappear and never call him again.

"It's fine," he says, and makes himself comfortable against her pillows. "Take Sara with you."

"Of course," she agrees easily. For all of her scheming and evasion, she's never defied him in this area—has never once attempted to lose Sara. He idly wonders why. "I'll be back in time for the board meeting this afternoon."

"I think Walter's taking that," he says. She's not the only one who has things to do; he's meeting Tommy for breakfast to discuss the problem of his father, and he expects it to run past lunch. "But I'll see you at dinner."

"Great," she says, and pats him gently on the stomach. "See you later, then."

It's a clear dismissal, and he smiles to himself as she rolls out of bed and walks, unashamed of her nudity, across the room and into the en-suite. He doesn't allow himself the laugh he's holding back until he hears the shower turn on.

Whatever else she is, his wife is a very intelligent woman.

She took her phone with her.


	8. Careful (Twenty Three Months)

A/N: lindewen asked: "How many time have I told you to be more careful?" - I know you were probably looking for Ward x Simmons, but I thought this would be really interesting for your Olicity Bratva AU, please?

* * *

Felicity's pacing sounds absurdly loud in the silent study, but she can't bring herself to stop.

"How many times have I told you to be more careful?" she demands.

Oliver's eyes track to her. He has to stay still, what with the stitches currently being applied to his forehead, but he manages to give the impression of raising an eyebrow without actually moving a muscle. Any other time, it would be pretty neat; right now, it just makes her want to hit him.

"Never," he says. "You've never said that to me."

"Well apparently I _should have_," she snaps.

The doctor treating Oliver is starting to look a little twitchy, which is not a good thing at the best of times but _especially_ not when he's got a needle so close to her husband's eyes. She adjusts her course so she's pacing alongside him instead of behind him. It seems to help.

"Honestly," she says, "Brawling in back alleys—what is this, an Al Pacino movie? You're supposed to be a professional."

"You're worried," he says. His tone is hard to pin down, but she thinks he sounds pleased.

The urge to hit him is growing by the second. "Of course I'm worried, you _moron_!"

The doctor knocks the tray off the desk, scattering medical supplies all over the carpet. Felicity sighs.

"Leave," she orders.

He doesn't need to be told twice.

"He wasn't done yet," Oliver says mildly.

"He was _twitchy_." She grabs the (thankfully well-packaged) butterfly bandages off the ground and takes the doctor's place in front of him. "He could've put your eye out."

He rests his hand—the one not currently splinted—on her thigh as she perches on the edge of his desk, and she can't ignore the way part of her relaxes at the warmth of his skin against hers.

She'd like to, though. She'd really, really like to.

"You're worried," he says again, and this time, he definitely sounds pleased.

"I was three inches away from being a widow," she says, determinedly keeping her eyes on his forehead and not the already stitched and bandaged bullet wound on his shoulder. Her heart is hammering in her chest, but long practice keeps her hands steady as she applies butterfly bandages to the cut on his cheek. "Of course I'm worried."

"Because you don't want me dead." He slides his hand a little further up her thigh, and she bites her tongue. "Do you?"

Denial is lovely, but it's also dangerous, which means Felicity can't keep hiding from the fact that her affections for Oliver aren't just of the platonic and/or physical variety. She actually _cares_ about him. (Forced to confront her feelings after seeing the object of them bleeding and unconscious—it's such a cliché that she's almost disappointed in herself.)

Sure, she needs him alive. But she also _wants_ him alive.

This isn't good. And she might have to admit it to herself, but she's definitely not admitting it to _him_.

"Not before you hand over the deed for that pretty little cottage in the Apennines, no," she says, and he smiles.

"I'll be sure not to, then," he muses. "I have enough people wanting me dead without adding my own wife to the list."

She wants to turn away, but she's caught in his gaze. There's something about the way he's looking at her—something about the way he said _my wife_, about the new tone he's taken to using for those words lately—that keeps her in place. She curses herself for being so efficient; she was too quick and doesn't even have the distraction of applying bandages anymore.

So she's forced to maintain eye contact while she asks, "This is something we're joking about? That you got jumped in an alley in your own territory? That's funny?"

He sits back in his chair, hand falling away from her thigh and humor fading from his face, and she almost regrets the diversion's success. She doesn't want to talk about her worry for him, but she also doesn't like the sudden tension in his jaw.

"No, Felicity." His tone is light, but if she were anyone else, she thinks she'd be terrified by his expression. "It's not funny at all."

"What are you going to do?" she asks.

He stands—easily, like it doesn't hurt at all, like he doesn't have two cracked ribs and countless stitches in various body parts—and steps into her space to stand between her knees. Then he cups her face in both hands and kisses her.

The kiss is quick, but it's not perfunctory at all. Actually, it's almost sweet; it makes her heart jump a little in her chest, and she has to fist her hands in her skirt to keep from pulling him back in for another when he draws away.

Not good. Really not good.

"The Triad has gone too far this time," he says. His hands linger on her face for a second before he drops them and steps back. "I'm going to kill them all."

She looks up at him, at his stitched and bandaged face, at the gauze on his left shoulder and the bruising coming in on his torso. Then she looks past him, to his bloodied shirt abandoned on the floor. She doesn't want to examine why the contrast of the red-stained white fabric against the dark carpet makes her stomach turn.

"Felicity?"

She drags her eyes back to his. She'd like to pretend she can't read the emotion in them, but she can. She absolutely can.

She swallows around the tightness in her throat, and then she asks the only question she can—the only question that matters, at this point.

"How can I help?"


	9. Kidnapped (Twenty Three Months)

Anonymous asked: "Bratva AU - kidnapped"

* * *

Felicity wakes with the complete certainty that she's dying.

Her head is in agony, skull throbbing in time with her heartbeat, and she swears she can feel each individual strand of her hair—and every one of them is aching. Something is drilling at her temples, trying to squeeze her head like a vise, and it takes way longer than it should for her to realize that the _something_ in question is the sound of shouting.

She tries to order whoever it is to _shut up_, but all she manages is a truly pathetic whimper—which, luckily, is muffled by the pillow that her face is apparently buried in, so at least there's a pretty good chance that no one heard it.

"Hey." Then again, sometimes she's wrong. "You're okay."

Her head screams in pain when the mattress shifts beneath her as someone—Sara, she's guessing, seeing as how she just spoke—sits on the edge of it, and Felicity plots murder. A second later, there are fingers in her hair, gently smoothing it back, and she instantly cancels the planned execution, because it's the most amazing thing she's ever felt.

"You're okay," Sara repeats softly. Her voice is barely above a whisper, which Felicity appreciates, since the shouting that _still hasn't stopped_ is in danger of making her head explode all on its own. "The headache's from the tranq; it shouldn't last long."

She manages a vaguely questioning noise that Sara, brilliant woman that she is, correctly interprets as a request for more information, because _what_?

"The Triad tried to grab you," Sara tells her, then adds, "Don't worry. I took care of it," before Felicity can react.

She takes a moment to absorb it anyway, because being kidnapped by the Triad is something that would end very, very badly for her. Over the course of her nearly two years of marriage to Oliver, she's been grateful for his decision to assign Sara as her bodyguard many times, but never as much as in this moment. She doesn't want to imagine what kind of wake-up she'd be getting if Sara hadn't taken care of things, but she's pretty sure it wouldn't involve quiet voices and her hair being petted.

Her headache has faded a little—not enough that she wouldn't appreciate being knocked out again until it goes away, but enough that she doesn't feel like her brain is going to melt out of her ears if she moves—so, without lifting her face out of the pillow, she reaches for Sara. It takes a few tries, but after a second she manages to find Sara's knee and pat it thankfully.

"You're welcome," Sara says.

Felicity's considering maybe giving actual _questions_ a try, because she has a _lot_, but she's quickly distracted. Withdrawing her arm brings about a new realization; when she shifts, her opposite shoulder brushes against warm skin.

There's someone else in bed with her.

With effort—though not as much as she's expecting to need—she turns her head to look. Her heart sinks at the sight of Thea, pale and still beside her.

"It's okay," Sara says, before she can start to panic, "She's fine. She just got a double dose of tranqs, that's all. She'll probably be out for another few hours."

Felicity reaches out to brush some of Thea's hair out of her face, chest tight with all the ways today could have ended terribly. This war with the Triad's been going on long enough that there's some serious hate on both sides; she doesn't think Thea's complete lack of involvement would've been enough to save her.

Assuming, that is, that it _was_ the Triad that tranq'd Thea, and not some _other_ stupid and suicidal enemy.

"The Triad came after her, too?" she asks, just to be sure.

Thea's guard—Felicity can't quite bring his name to mind—is standing in the sitting area, glowering out the window, and at her question, he practically snarls. There's a pretty big hole in the wall next to him, and even with the pain clouding her mind, she doesn't have any trouble connecting that to the bloody bandage wrapped around his hand.

Apparently that one's got a temper. Something to keep in mind.

"I'll take that as a yes," she mutters, and rolls over to face Sara. "Oh!"

"Just a flesh wound," Sara promises, giving her a one-sided smile. One-sided because she's got a pretty nasty gash on her other cheek, covered by a worrying number of butterfly bandages. "Nothing to worry about."

"That is _not_ a flesh wound," she says, "And you got it protecting me. That makes it something to worry about."

"It _is_ a flesh wound," Sara insists. "It didn't even need stitches. And I _like _protecting you; it's fun."

Felicity's not sure where to begin dissecting everything that's wrong with that argument, and in any case, she's not likely to win any debates anytime soon. So she'll let it go—for now—and address Sara's worrying attitude later.

She's provided a distraction (and an excuse to change the subject) as the shouting—which, now that she's a little less out of it, she can tell is coming from downstairs—picks up again. It makes the fading pain in her head spike, and, childishly, she covers her ears.

"Go protect me by killing whoever's shouting, then," she orders.

Sara laughs—quietly, because Sara is the best. "Sorry. I would if I could, but he outranks you."

It takes her a second to puzzle that out; when she does, she pushes herself up into a sitting position at once. Then she has to hold herself still for a second; even without the shouting (_Oliver's_ shouting), her head is still pounding, and the sudden movement makes the world swim.

On the bright side, though, it's a lot easier to breathe when she's not face down in her pillow.

But there are more important things to worry about than her headache right now.

"That's _Oliver_?" she asks, once she's steadier.

Oliver _never_ shouts. He gets quiet when he's angry, not loud enough to be heard all the way upstairs.

"Yeah." All traces of amusement have disappeared from Sara's face; she frowns down at the blankets covering Felicity's knees. "You and Thea weren't the only ones the Triad went after. They got Tommy."

Her heart leaps to her throat. "When you say got…?"

"Kidnapped," Sara clarifies, with a weak attempt at a smile. "Not dead." Her eyes drift to the bedroom door. "The Triad's trying to ransom him. It's…not going over well."

Considering the fact that she's been married to Oliver for two years and can count the times she's heard him shout on one hand, Felicity thinks that's kind of an understatement. She rubs her forehead, trying to focus through the throbbing in her temples.

The last thing she remembers is walking out of a restaurant downtown, where she was having a business lunch with some of QC's other department heads. If the Triad tried to grab _her_ off the street…

"Where was Tommy taken from?" she asks.

Sara shrugs. "We're not sure. The last person who saw him was Laurel, when he visited her at work, but that was this morning. The Triad attacked you at two—same with Thea—so we're figuring that's when he was taken, but beyond that…"

She nods in understanding. Tommy doesn't have a guard—has repeatedly refused one, and she hopes they don't end up regretting it—so there's no way for the family to trace his steps the way they can Felicity and Thea's.

But chances are he was grabbed off the street, and if he was grabbed off the street, then somewhere in this city is a CCTV camera with an image of it.

"Okay," she says, and throws her blankets aside. "Help me up."

"What?" Sara catches her by the shoulders before she can do more than inch towards the edge of the bed. "No. You just got hit with five milliliters of midazolam; you need to stay in bed."

Felicity bats her hands away. "I _need_ to find Tommy."

"We're already tearing the city apart," Sara starts, and Felicity interrupts her by sliding to the edge of the bed—nearly knocking her off of it in the process.

"I wasn't asking," she says. "Now help me up and grab my laptop."

It takes a little more arguing, which doesn't do much for her headache, but less than ten minutes later, Felicity walks into Oliver's home office under (mostly) her own power. He's still shouting—in Russian, so she's not totally sure what he's saying, although she's pretty sure she catches the word _orphaned_—but he stops the second he sees her.

"Felicity," he says, crossing the room at once. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"Finding Tommy," she says. "I'll need to use your desk."

She starts to move past him, but he moves with her, blocking her way.

"Felicity—"

"Oliver," she snaps. "I can find _you_ when you don't want me to. Do you really think the Triad can hide from me?" She takes in the rest of the room in a glance—the numerous well-armed men and women, the marked-up maps, the tension on every face. "You can tear the city apart and find him eventually, but I can find him faster."

His eyes sweep over the room, taking in the same signs she just did. It's obvious the search isn't going well—and she'd know that even if they were having this conversation in private, in her bedroom. Oliver's face is still set with fury, but she can see there's a little bit of panic hiding in there, too.

She knows him—and she knows what Tommy means to him.

"Let me help," she says, drawing his gaze back to her. "Please."

He stares down at her, eyes dark, and Felicity's breath catches. For a heartbeat, she can see every single thing he hasn't been saying about her—about _them_—lately written on his face. Heat suffuses her, chased quickly by a chill of terror.

She can't face _this_.

Thankfully for her nerves, the expression disappears as quickly as it came. His head dips in a slight nod.

"Thank you," he says. He doesn't offer her a deal, and she doesn't ask for one. That was only ever a pretense, and they've moved beyond it. Instead, he just sets both hands on her shoulders and gently steers her to his desk. She's grateful for the support—her head is still pounding and her knees are kind of weak. "You can use my laptop."

"Mine's better," she says, settling into his desk chair, and shoves his laptop aside. "Sara?"

"Here," Sara says, appearing from—well, who knows, with her—and setting Felicity's laptop down.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." Sara pats her on the shoulder, then turns to Oliver. "I'm guessing you've got this?"

"Yeah," he says. "Stay with Thea."

"On it."

Felicity only vaguely registers Sara's departure. Most of her attention is split between putting her laptop's security protocols in place and deciding which method of tracing Tommy to try first. Hacking the GPS on his phone is probably pretty pointless—the Triad isn't smart, as evidenced by the death wish they've displayed in kidnapping Tommy in the first place, but it isn't made up of _complete_ morons—but, at the same time, it'll only take a second and there's always a chance, so—

Oliver's hand lands on her shoulder, pulling her out of her mental debate.

"What?" she asks, looking up at him.

"Thank you," he repeats, and while his face isn't as open as it was a minute ago, it's still pretty easy to read.

His feelings for her are there in his eyes, plain as day, for her to see.

It feels like a declaration.

This isn't good. It's not what she planned—it is, in fact, the exact opposite of her plans. But her head is pounding and her limbs are a little shaky with the after-effects of a tranquilizer she got shot with because of _him_, and instead of staying in her nice, warm bed, she dragged herself down a million stairs to sit in his office and find the man who's basically his brother.

And not because it gets her anything—not because she _has_ to. She's not doing this to win points or gain an advantage or so she can leverage it later. She's here because she knows what Tommy means to Oliver, and she doesn't want him to lose him. That's all.

So she guesses her plans have kind of taken a back seat anyway, at this point.

Throat tight, she lays her hand over his, just for a second. She hopes her feelings are better hidden than his.

"You're welcome," she manages.

Then she turns back to her task, deciding to start with Tommy's phone's GPS first. Better to get it out of the way, and hey, they might get lucky.

Oliver doesn't interrupt her again. As she works, she's peripherally aware of his voice—lower, now, though still angry—giving orders to his people. Focused as she is, she barely hears it, and she doesn't try to. She just lets it become a semi-comforting background noise, a steady stream of sound to guide her thoughts along.

But his hand stays on her shoulder the whole time, and that's a lot harder to ignore.

She never shakes it off. That feels like a declaration, too.


	10. Choices (Twenty Three Months)

A/N: lindewen asked: "1. Cheek kiss - in your Olicity Bratva AU?" I basically shoehorned this part into that prompt, buuuuuut at least it's an update? On which note, apologies for how long this took. My Arrow muse is super uncooperative and Felicity put up a major fight about this chapter. I hope it doesn't disappoint!

* * *

The problem with Felicity's little hack into the Bratva's communication network is that it comes with severe limitations.

Namely, the fact that she only knows what people are talking about.

Reading Oliver's texts—or Diggle's or Sara's or random background grunt #17's—doesn't tell her anything about what happened before she came along. Emails don't offer a key to use to fill the blanks in what _isn't_ said, and there's no voicemail in the world that can translate the speaking looks Oliver's people tend to exchange when certain subjects come up.

So Felicity _knows_ she's missing something right now. There are undertones in this conversation; at least half of it is going right over her head, and even though she can almost _see_ it fly by, she has no idea where to even start puzzling it out.

All she can do is sit and listen—and act as a pillow for the still-dazed Thea, cuddled into her side and dozing on her shoulder. Poor thing; she really shouldn't be out of bed, yet, but she refused to stay there when she heard about Tommy.

"Nyssa can be here by tomorrow afternoon," Sara is saying, "but—"

"But _what_?" Oliver demands. Rescuing Tommy didn't calm him down anywhere near as much as Felicity (and everyone else, she's sure) was hoping it would; he's still simmering with fury, and the tension in the room jumps up a notch every time he speaks. Sooner or later, someone's gonna snap.

(Her money's on the guy in the corner.)

In the meantime, she's starting to get a little worried about the amount of tension in his jaw. If he keeps grinding his teeth like that, he's gonna do them some serious damage. Does the Bratva have a dentist on the payroll?

"If the League finds out Malcolm's in town, they won't _not_ go after him," Sara says. "Not even for me. He'll be dead before dinner."

"I don't care," Oliver dismisses. "So ca—"

"Tommy does."

All eyes snap to Laurel Lance.

Laurel's one of those things—or people, Felicity amends—that doesn't get talked about. There's something going on there, something more than just Laurel being a good-hearted, morally upstanding public defender keeping company with a family of criminals, but if anyone knows what it is, no one's saying.

All Felicity knows about Laurel is that she's Tommy's girlfriend and Sara's sister and that she has _excellent_ taste in shoes.

Not that she's wearing shoes at the moment. She's curled up in the chair next to Tommy's bed, where she's spent the three hours since this bedroom was turned into a makeshift hospital room. Tommy was drugged into unconsciousness the second he arrived (probably a mercy, considering the state he's in) and wouldn't know it if the Queen of England showed up to change his bandages, but Laurel's refused to budge.

Even now, staring Oliver down, she hasn't let go of Tommy's hand. It's sweet.

"What was that, Laurel?" Oliver asks. His voice is a little gentler than it was with Sara, possibly in deference to Laurel's status of extremely worried girlfriend, but it's still not what anyone could call _nice_.

"I said, Tommy does," Laurel repeats, pale but composed. "He doesn't want his father dead and you know it."

"I also know that the last time I respected Tommy's wishes, he got kidnapped by the Triad," Oliver says dryly. "I can live with upsetting him."

Felicity thinks the touch of humor is a good sign, but she's apparently alone in that, because Laurel looks furious.

"_Ollie_," she snaps. "That's not funny."

…Ollie? Felicity glances down at Thea, the only other person she's ever heard use that nickname, but she's barely conscious, and Felicity doesn't have the heart to bother her.

No one else reacts to the name. Interesting.

"What's _not funny_ is that the Triad has us outnumbered," Oliver snaps back, "and they've crossed too many lines. They need to be destroyed, but we can't do it alone, so unless you've got a _different_ team of highly-trained assassins to offer—"

"She's right," Sara interrupts. "Tommy would never forgive—"

"Tommy nearly _died_," Oliver grits out. "And Thea and Felicity were almost kidnapped. If Malcolm's life is the price for dealing with the Triad, I am _more_ than happy to pay it—no matter what Tommy thinks."

Felicity tunes out the rest of the argument. It's novel, in that anyone's arguing with Oliver at all—especially when he's wearing that face—but mostly uninteresting. The important thing is that the only back-up Oliver's got in mind will probably cost him his best friend, and that's hardly _her_ problem. She pointed the way to where Tommy was being held and helped disguise the rescue team's approach; her work here is done.

Still, though…

She knows there's some kind of issue with Tommy's father, that no one—including Tommy—actually likes him, and that there's been trouble with him before. She knows that Nyssa is Sara's long-distance girlfriend.

She _didn't_ know that Nyssa had any connection to a team (league?) of highly-trained assassins, but okay. It's not like Felicity has any room to point fingers in that regard.

She also doesn't know what Nyssa might have against Tommy's father. What she _does_ know is that Oliver's right; the Bratva can't take the Triad alone. Honestly, just the fact that Oliver's _admitting_ they need help should serve as enough proof of that.

The Triad's gotten back-up from somewhere—enough back-up that Oliver lost more than a dozen men in the course of rescuing Tommy—which means the Bratva needs back-up, too. And unless they want to call in to Russia (which they don't, for reasons Oliver's not sharing), Nyssa and her assassins are the family's only option.

…Except that's not exactly true, is it?

Felicity worries at her lower lip, fighting herself for a long minute. She _almost_ wins—but then her eyes catch on Oliver, on the tense line of his shoulders and the way the circuit he's pacing never takes him more than six feet from Tommy's bed.

Damn it.

With a sigh (and some very careful maneuvering), she slips out from under Thea's weight, gently guiding her to lie flat on the couch. She stirs, a little, but quiets when Felicity drapes the afghan from the back of the couch over her.

The thought of Thea in the Triad's hands—the thought of her in the kind of pain Tommy was in, pre-drugging—helps firm her resolve. They got lucky, this time, but luck runs out.

If there's one thing growing up in Vegas taught Felicity, it's that you should never lay a bet without stacking the deck. Right now, the deck's stacked against them.

And however little she likes it, she knows exactly how to change that.

"Oliver," she says, cutting through the stare-down he's having with Laurel. (Something new to add to what Felicity knows about her: she has nerves of _steel_.) "Can I talk to you? Outside?"

"Felicity," Oliver starts, clearly annoyed, and she widens her eyes at him.

"Please?"

His brow furrows, but after a second, he nods. "Fine."

"Great," she says, and heads for the door, catching his hand on the way. "Be right back, everyone."

This is stupid. This is _so_ stupid. She'll set her own plans—important plans, plans that are literally the _only reason_ she even married Oliver in the first place—back _months_ if she goes through with this. What does she care if Tommy starts hating Oliver? At least he's _alive_.

"Felicity?" Oliver prompts as the door shuts behind them, and damn it, it's not _fair_ that he says her name like that.

She is such a moron.

"Nyssa's not your only option," she says, all in a rush, and—there it is. It's said. She can't go back now.

Oliver's eyes narrow. "No?"

"I was almost kidnapped," she reminds him.

"I haven't forgotten," he says darkly (and wow, did it just get hot in here?). "What does that have to—"

"My father has men to spare," she says over him. "Frame it like the Triad is a threat to me—which it _is_—and he'll send a whole cadre of disposable thugs for back-up."

He stares down at her, face unreadable, and she bites down on the urge to fill the silence. She hasn't babbled since she was a little girl, and she's not about to pick the habit up again.

There's no reason to be nervous.

"Calling on your father will make me look weak," he says eventually.

It's a valid point. She knows how this stuff works. Oliver can't afford to look weak—not ever, but _especially_ not in the middle of a war with the Triad. There are other powers in this city, and if they smell blood in the water…the family will be fighting a war on two fronts before they know it.

"And calling on Sara's girlfriend won't?" she asks.

"We've had dealings with the League before." The corner of his mouth tips up in a decidedly unamused smile. "They owe me a favor."

Whereas if Oliver asks her father for help, the Bratva will owe her father a favor, and that's _never_ a good thing. Oliver's smart to want to avoid it.

It's an out, and she should definitely take it. Definitely. She tried, Oliver said no, and she can let him ruin his friendship with Tommy with a clear conscience.

Looking up at him, though, she finds her voice sticking in her throat. His eyes are shadowed—when was the last time he slept?—and there's a nasty cut along his left cheek. A couple inches higher and he'd probably be blind in that eye. But he came home in one piece, which is a lot more than can be said for most of the rescue party. For a minute or two, listening over the radios to his fight with the Triad, she thought…

She's still holding his hand.

Crap.

"You don't have to _ask_ my father for help," she says, reluctantly. She wishes she didn't know this—that her stupid genius brain would stop turning for _once_ and not offer an instant solution to this problem—but if wishes were horses she wouldn't have had to beg for a pony when she was little. "You don't have to talk to him at all."

He frowns. "My wife asking for help on my behalf would make me look even weaker."

"No, I mean—" She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to calm the racing of her heart. Oliver can't possibly understand the significance of this; there's no reason to panic about sharing it. "My father has my mom's phone tapped. All I have to do is call her and tell her what happened, and he'll have back-up on its way before you can say _invasion of privacy_."

"That's rich, coming from you," Oliver says, but it's an absently fond jab. His eyes have drifted away from hers; he's obviously thinking it over.

"No asking required," she says, hoping to encourage him—and how dumb is that? What is _wrong_ with her? "In fact, when his thugs show up, the right kind of call to him will have him thinking _he_ owes _us_ a favor."

Oliver's gaze sharpens.

"Us?" he asks mildly.

Oh. Oops.

…What the hell. It's not like she's fooling either one of them, anyway.

"Yes," she says, very quietly. Not because she means to be, but because this is a leap, and she has to force the word out. "Us."

That—placing herself firmly on Oliver's side when her own father is the opposite party—is the biggest declaration she could offer. Bigger than Oliver could possibly understand, even, but he knows enough. This is more than dragging herself out of bed to find Tommy after nearly being kidnapped, more than helping him against the Triad—more than asking him to stay the night after sex, even.

This is big, and his pleased smile says he knows it.

He buries a hand in her hair and pulls her in for a kiss that curls her toes, and that says even more. His fingers knead at the base of her skull, easing away the last little bit of a headache that's pounding away there, while his other arm is an iron band around her waist.

It's not really the time for this, but…whatever.

The kiss is way shorter than she'd like—silly lungs and their need for oxygen—but it's still long enough that her head's spinning when Oliver draws back. He doesn't go far and he doesn't let go of her, and all things considered, it would be downright stupid, at this point, to pretend she doesn't know why she's so happy about that.

"Thank you," he says—for like the hundredth time tonight. Felicity's never been thanked so much in her life.

It's so nice to be appreciated.

"You're welcome," she says, and kisses his cheek. "But you definitely owe me that cottage in the Apennines now."

He grins down at her, and even though it's not nearly as rare a sight as it used to be, it still makes her heart pound. One of these days she's really gonna have to face up to what they're not saying.

But they've not-said a _lot_ tonight, so that's a conversation she thinks can be put off for a while longer.

"It's yours," he promises. Then his smile fades slightly. "How sure are you this plan will work?"

Right. The plan. For a second there, with the whole openly-aligning-herself-against-her-father thing, she almost forgot what _prompted_ said alignment.

"Positive," she says, and flattens her palms against his chest to push him away. "Trust me, we'll have back-up before dawn, and one conversation is all it'll take to convince my father you're doing him a favor by letting them stick around. The hardest part'll be getting my mom off the phone."

"Oh?" Oliver asks, hand trailing down her arm as he steps back. She nearly shivers.

"She likes to talk," she stage-whispers, earning another smile. "If I'm not back in an hour, come find me with a fake emergency, okay?"

"Okay," he agrees, still smiling.

She's smiling, too, as she walks away, even though she really shouldn't be. In making this call, she's sacrificing no little ground towards her ultimate goal—a goal she's spent more than half her life working towards.

The thing is, though, it almost feels worth it.

And that's…more than a little terrifying.


	11. Blown (Twenty Three Months)

A/N: absentlyabbie asked: "*sneaks in because you reblogged my meme* bratva au, blown"

* * *

Oliver thought he'd gotten out of the habit of underestimating his wife, but listening to her talk to her father, he's resigned (and a bit amused) to realize he was wrong.

"Yes, Daddy," she says, sweetly, for at least the tenth time. She sounds very _young—_harmless, even—and it's quite the contrast to the easy way she walked Oliver through manipulating her father into owing him a favor less than an hour ago. "I will, Daddy. Love you too!"

Digg's by the door, listening just as incredulously as Oliver, and as Felicity hangs up, Oliver tips his head in silent dismissal. Felicity's almost endearingly secretive, and he's much more likely to get answers if they're alone. He'll fill Digg in later.

(The frown Digg gives him before slipping out demands as much. Digg might be content to play his bodyguard in public, but in private, he's just as fearless as Felicity.)

"Thank God _that's_ over wi—what?" Felicity furrows her brow at him, leaning back in her chair. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm curious," he says, and laces his fingers on his desk. "That act you put on, the day we met—was that for _my_ benefit? Or your father's?"

The first time he met Felicity, he dismissed her as an airheaded heiress, and not without cause. She spent the entire time he was negotiating with her father sitting in the corner, ignoring them in favor of playing a game on her phone, and contributed nothing at all to the meeting. Then, once negotiations were complete, she accepted the news that she was to marry a complete stranger with a giggle and with_out_ a word of protest.

He realized within the first week of their marriage that he'd been tricked, of course. He's even become grateful for it; if he'd realized the truth of Felicity, how brilliant she is—how dangerously cunning—he never would have agreed to the deal, no matter what he got out of it. He would have walked away without another thought, and _that_ would have been a shame.

So he knows now, of course, that her brainless act was just that: an act. But he's always assumed that it was something Felicity and her father cooked up between them for his sake.

The phone call he just listened to suggests otherwise.

"Ah," Felicity says, laughing slightly. "Oops. Busted, huh?"

"Yes," he agrees. "Very."

The question is, exactly _why_ would Felicity feel the need to fool her own father? And more importantly, how does it work? He knows he's guilty of his own blind spots when it comes to his family, but how could _anyone_ who raised Felicity fail to notice how extraordinary she is?

If not for what it got him, Oliver would be seriously reconsidering his alliance with that man.

Felicity is watching him thoughtfully and, in response to his raised eyebrow, merely smiles.

"Is this really the time?" she asks. "We've still got the Triad to deal with."

The _we_ still warms him; she might be refusing to acknowledge what's between them, but she's been showing it in ways large and small over the last few months, and never so much as in the last twelve hours. In turn, he's come to trust her more than before.

That doesn't mean he can let this pass. "It's a simple question."

She bites her lip distractingly. He pushes his attraction aside and waits.

"But not a simple answer," she says, just as a knock comes at the door.

"Sir?" Michaels calls through it. "We're ready for you."

Felicity's right. This isn't the time. The Triad needs to be taken care of, and now that he has the manpower—Felicity's father was more than generous—he's in no mood to delay.

This can wait. Once the Triad's dealt with, though…

"This isn't over," he warns her. "When the Triad's done, I want an answer."

He pushes to his feet, and Felicity stands to meet him as he rounds his desk.

"When the Triad's done," she says, quietly, face full of the same steely resolve she wore when she first offered her help against them, "I just might give you one."

For now, it'll have to do.


End file.
